20120929 practice match vid

if you remember, sometime ago I posted a match video of a guy and i said I consider myself 0.5 lower than him. many of you asked me why and i couldn't give a convincing reason.

finally I made a trip to the city where he lives and had a match with him. it turned out that my estimation was pretty accurate. we played two sets. I hardly felt a thing and quickly lost the first one at 0:6. then I got my game back gradually but still lost at 3:6. so I am more confident to say that he is at least 0.5 higher than me.

His more experience than u.. main thing why u lost , u gave away too many cheap points.. something he didn't do.. and i feel u alrdy told yourself your going to lose even b4 u started the match.. it's a guess but if u do have such a mentality going into a match, u alrdy lost half of it... if u do want to bezt him cut down those errors.. normal rallying shots that r not winner shouldn't have so much errors.. of cuz it takes practice

You're not anticipating the ball at all. It's almost as though you're waiting for it to reach the service line (on your side) before you start to move.
I would highly suggest working a lot on your foot work. Your game is decent, serve is nice. Though I would work on placing your serve to his weakness.
Though more than anything, working on anticipation and footwork...don't be lazy out there, move toward the ball!

I just don't get it.
I've seen your first practice vids, and you hit waaaaaay stronger then than you do now.
You pattycake ALL your serves until minute 4:30, where you start to hit a real serve.
You hit every ball back to your opponent until then too.
Why is your backhand sooooooo bad. You float the ball long over and over, without adding the heavy underspin you need to control, depth and frustrate opponent's.
Why is your second serve so predictable and weak?
You opponent comes to net maybe 7 times, and you did not pass him more than ONCE, and you didn't lob him either!
Why are you swinging like an old man who has shoulder problems. You swing and hit weaker than I can possibly imagine.
Why do you insist on hitting sooooo many balls just up the middle? And why so slow?
Why are you so easy to hit behind? You run back to center of intersect waaaaaaaaay to early, allowing your opponent to hit behind you.
Looks like you regressed LOTS from your first hitting vid.
This vids has all the makings of pusher tennis, but you are not trying to outpush your opponent. Instead, you are trying to out underhit your opponent with soft easy shots over and over again, until finally, after minute 4, you start to once in a while, hit the ball for real.

I just don't get it.
I've seen your first practice vids, and you hit waaaaaay stronger then than you do now.
You pattycake ALL your serves until minute 4:30, where you start to hit a real serve.
You hit every ball back to your opponent until then too.
Why is your backhand sooooooo bad. You float the ball long over and over, without adding the heavy underspin you need to control, depth and frustrate opponent's.
Why is your second serve so predictable and weak?
You opponent comes to net maybe 7 times, and you did not pass him more than ONCE, and you didn't lob him either!
Why are you swinging like an old man who has shoulder problems. You swing and hit weaker than I can possibly imagine.
Why do you insist on hitting sooooo many balls just up the middle? And why so slow?
Why are you so easy to hit behind? You run back to center of intersect waaaaaaaaay to early, allowing your opponent to hit behind you. Why don't you do any SPLIT STEPS?

Looks like you regressed LOTS from your first hitting vid.
This vids has all the makings of pusher tennis, but you are not trying to outpush your opponent. Instead, you are trying to out underhit your opponent with soft easy shots over and over again, until finally, after minute 4, you start to once in a while, hit the ball for real.

Also, why did you hit almost every ball to his forehand? For his level, he has a pretty good forehand which he uses as a weapon
Not only were you not going for your serves ( no leg drive and no racquet acceleration) you hit almost all the ones I saw (sorry, didn't make it through all of it), to his forehand.

You're not anticipating the ball at all. It's almost as though you're waiting for it to reach the service line (on your side) before you start to move.
I would highly suggest working a lot on your foot work. Your game is decent, serve is nice. Though I would work on placing your serve to his weakness.
Though more than anything, working on anticipation and footwork...don't be lazy out there, move toward the ball!

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can't agree more with you about my footwork, just a few thoughts about anticipation. I used to play badminton and I was tought that never to move before my opponent moves the contact. because badminton is full of change of directions at the last second. naturally I would think the same about tennis thus, never move to a perticular direction before the ball is hit by my opponent. am I wrong?

anyway, even though I had tried to anticipant, it was the first time I played this player, I know nothing about his stroke or habit, how can I anticipant?

can't agree more with you about my footwork, just a few thoughts about anticipation. I used to play badminton and I was tought that never to move before my opponent moves the contact. because badminton is full of change of directions at the last second. naturally I would think the same about tennis thus, never move to a perticular direction before the ball is hit by my opponent. am I wrong?

anyway, even though I had tried to anticipant, it was the first time I played this player, I know nothing about his stroke or habit, how can I anticipant?

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Badminton uses a **** (snap) of the wrist. Very easy to change directions. In tennis, once you've started, you can't change it.

Anticipation comes with match play. Once you've played enough players, you'll know what they tend to do in certain situations. It just comes.

You didn't do too badly in the video. You just played too carefully. WAY TOO carefully. You're serving at 40% strength, and many ground strokes were just tapping it back. You have to increase the intensity, and you have to find out how hard you can go and keep the ball in play. You can't give it 100%, because shots will go out too often. Tennis is about playing 70-80% strength. (but 100% running, and 100% everything else. Just 70% strength)

I'm sure a racket can make a difference, but you are swinging slow and carefully, totally pushing both your serves and your groundies, until minute 4:30, at which point you started to hit a few for real.
Why wait that long?
If you start off swinging faster, if would force you to quicken your footwork to get into the right spot sooner. When you push softies, you don't need footwork, so you don't use it.

Have a look of my previous video. take a close look at the depth of my partners' shot. Then check the depth of your shots in your video. You will find huge difference. I checked the first 6 mins of your video, only find one reasonably deep shot from you. Depth is the key for baseline shots, consistence>depth>spin>angel>power/pace.

The guy in my video, I cannot get a set off him in the first half year we played, as I couldn't match his consistence and depth. Now as I am as consistent as him and hit deeper than before, he give out much more errors. Depth is the key!

And, if you has to hit very hard to get depth, loose your string until most of your rally shots (70% of full power) would land beyond serve line.

Initially I just watched and was guessing you were the closer player, since
that is the norm,
and was going to say why so many errors to a much weaker player.
Then I see you are the weaker player and do little more than poke it back
defensively.
I the the difference here is greater than .5 from what I saw of the vid.
I read where others have seen you hit the ball, but why don't you stroke it
in this match vid?? You have to move way faster for a defensive player as
well.
If you are going to slice, then they need to stay low and skidd...not float and
sit up.
I think you may need someone easier to work on your strokes against to build
confidence to go for and make your shots.

about this, I have watched this video long time ago and I thought I understand it quite well. but maybe in reality i am not using it correctly. could you do me a favor to point out one maybe two cases in this vid where I didn't position myself correctly for the shots? thanks.

about this, I have watched this video long time ago and I thought I understand it quite well. but maybe in reality i am not using it correctly. could you do me a favor to point out one maybe two cases in this vid where I didn't position myself correctly for the shots? thanks.

Click to expand...

That video jump out my head just because you said: "naturally I would think the same about tennis thus, never move to a particular direction before the ball is hit by my opponent. am I wrong?".

Anyway, I went back to check your video again, couldn't find anything in about first 3 and half mins since most points ended in less than 3 shots. The backhand down the line at 4.10, you should move toward forehand side of your court after finished the shot unless your opponent has strong tendency of hitting down the line when running. Your serve return at 5.50 was quite good, landed deep at his backhand side, he missed forehand due to lost balance, but if he didn't miss and hit back to your backhand side, you will have to hit a backhand because you moved toward centre too much after return. If you stayed at backhand side, you will be in position to hit a strong inside out/inside in forehand. I didn't check the rest of your video.

In any case, the general rule of positioning in baseline rally is:" move toward the mirror position of where your opponent going to hit the ball, stop and split step when he is in hitting position", that is what that video about anyway.